


running home to you

by vowelinthug



Series: smallpox [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, M/M, More talking, Smallpox, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10562496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vowelinthug/pseuds/vowelinthug
Summary: "See? Itoldyou I didn’t kill him."—post-finale, where everyone learns a valuable lesson about communication and smallpox





	

**Author's Note:**

> black sails: ends on a soft, gay, bittersweet note  
> me: nice  
> also me: but what about if everyone just _talked_ to each other for another 9k words

“See? I _told_ you I didn’t kill him.”

Flint stands in the doorway of his home, blinking. It’s a slightly overcast day, so it isn’t the sun making him blink. It isn’t that he’s spent all morning hunched over the kitchen table, hand-copying Thomas’s latest essay a dozen times to be distributed that evening.

He blinks at Silver and Madi, standing on his front steps. They’re both dressed in common finery, everything either in a muted blue or beige. They’ve both bathed recently. Madi’s dress is unadorned but corseted. Silver’s hair is tied back in a neat tail, and he’s wearing a waistcoat. They both blend in well to the people on the busy street behind them, and indeed with anyone else in Boston. But they both look so singularly unlike how they reside in Flint’s memory, that they look stark and vivid standing there, like the sun is managing to break through the gray skies just enough to land two beams of light directly on them.

“I never said I didn’t believe you --” starts Madi, turning to Silver, who stands a little behind her.

“You absolutely have said that, on numerous occasions,” says Silver, face pinched like he’s trying not to smile at proving himself right.

“Well, I’ve also said that what happened to Flint is merely _one_ of my grievances with you,” says Madi.

“Yes, but I feel like this was a particularly large roadblock for us,” says Silver, now giving in to that impulse to smile, “that I hope, with the simple opening of this door, will allow us to start dismantling the rest of them.”

“It will take more than waiting on a hill, John Silver, or crossing an ocean, or bringing me to a ugly city in the colonies, or opening a _door_ \--”

“Technically, I opened the door,” says Flint. “Hello, by the way.”

They both stop and stare at him for the first time since he opened it. With both sets of eyes on him, Flint is struck dumb. He doesn’t think he should be the one to speak again, since he’s the one who deserves an explanation, but Madi, he knows, likes to wait and learn from others before giving her own input. Silver just looks at him silently, taking him in. No one says anything for a long moment.

“Oh, we’ve got company.” And there’s Thomas, coming up the walk behind them. He’d shaved his beard, but the gray in his hair is prominent and beautiful, and his clothes are nothing like the ones he wore in London. They are as drab and inconspicuous as everyone else’s. “Are you going to introduce me?”

Silver and Madi are now trapped between them, and on the surface it doesn’t look like they’re aware of that, but Flint knows they are. Silver moves minutely, instinctually shifting to place himself between Thomas and Madi. And Flint.

“Oh,” says Flint to Thomas over Silver’s head. “Just the ghosts of my past.”

“What,” says Thomas. “Again?”

Flint sees the moment Thomas notices Silver’s missing leg. He visibly falters, his crinkled smile slipping from his face, his lips forming a perfect O. He says nothing, and Flint thinks they might all continue to stand there, saying nothing, if no one steps up.

“Well, come inside then,” says Flint, stepping back into their small home, sandwiched between some other small homes. “I’ve developed this new bad habit since we last saw each other, of caring what the neighbors might think.”

“And how is that going for you?” Madi asks as she brushes past him.

“Horribly,” Flint admits, leading them all inside. “But thanks for asking.”

* * *

Thomas busies himself making tea. Flint has discovered how odd it is to see Thomas doing menial things like that, but then for a while it was odd to see Thomas _breathing_ , so he doesn’t mind this particular oddness to linger. In London, Thomas would be given a cup of tea, perfectly made for him, which he’d forget to drink, too busy talking or writing or planning. On the plantation, he told Flint, the tea was never hot, and there was never any sugar or milk to put into it, and some days he’d be placed in chains too short to reach his mouth. Flint knows he likes to make his tea himself, now.

Silver paces around their tiny sitting area, which opens up to their tiny kitchen, silently collecting all their clutter. He prowls through their bookshelves like a burglar, the smile from earlier replaced with a small frown as he reads through the titles. Flint can’t help but notice how fluidly he moves on the crutch, even more nimble than before. Every so often a step will land heavier than the one before, louder and sudden, and, Flint thinks, with intention. It reminds everyone -- reminds Flint -- exactly how he needs to move around.

Madi sits at the table across from Flint. She’s the only one looking at him.

“You could have written me a letter,” she says softly, hands clasped in front of her. “You could have given it to John before leaving. Just so I’d better understand your side of things. Just so I’d know.”

Flint shifts awkwardly in his chair. “I -- hadn’t realize you’d be so affected. So much had occurred in those final days. Forgive me.” Then he adds, “Also, I didn’t have any paper on me.”

It feels ridiculous to say, given that they were surrounded by stacks upon stacks of paper, curled into scrolls in tenuous pyramids, flattened and piled precariously like monuments, scraps organized in a way only a madman might understand. The air is saturated with the scent of wet ink.

“I was surprised to find you _here_ , I must admit,” Silver says. He’s looking out the window at the street. “This seems too crowded here. I pictured you both away from civilization, on a farm somewhere. I’m not sure why.”

Thomas snorts, but says nothing, bringing the tea over. He places the tray on top of the other papers that cover the table. Flint had thought, once they’d left Savannah, they would do exactly what Silver thought. Find a little cottage somewhere, plant something, and rest.

Thomas, who by no means has lost his eloquence in the last decade but had along the way picked up profanity, said the next time he picks up a garden hoe would be to shove it so far up Flint’s arse, he could use his teeth to plant the seeds. Thomas missed the city. Flint missed Thomas, and would have happily lived under a rock, if that’s where Thomas wanted to reside.

“Did you know,” says Thomas, sitting down at the table to Flint’s right, but looking right at Madi, “that we are on the brink of an epidemic here in Boston?”

She blinks at him. “No, I did not,” she says. “But that hardly surprises me.”

“Really?” Thomas asks. “And why is that?”

Madi’s eyes flicker to Flint for a second before gazing back at Thomas. “The world is always looking for new ways to kill the ones left living in it,” she says.

Thomas smiles. “You remind me of my late wife,” he says.

Silver stops pacing, but he doesn’t say anything. Flint had been sitting still at the table, but he also feels frozen. A coldness coils in his heart, wrapping around his throat, and it’s both biting and numbing and altogether suffocating. Thomas had yet to bring up Miranda in all this time, not since Flint told him what had happened.

“Is that so?” Madi asks. She knows what happened to Miranda, because Silver knows.

“She wasn’t nearly as bold as you are,” says Thomas, taking a sip of his tea. “She loved to insinuate. She had a way of saying things so you would agree to her side without her ever needing to state her side aloud. But your presence is not unfamiliar to me. She was the only one I’ve ever wanted to spend hours listening to, without once waiting for my own chance to speak.”

“I don’t speak that much,” Madi says.

“I’m gathering,” says Thomas, still smiling. “But Miranda never uttered a trivial word in her whole life, and I speculate you are much the same.”

Madi doesn’t respond to that, which only makes Thomas look at Flint and smile wider.

“Would you like to visit James’s garden?” Thomas asks her.

A smile twitches on her lips before she can stop herself. “ _His_ garden?”

“James grows tomatoes out back,” says Thomas, standing. “Or at least, he tries. He has yet to produce anything that resembles a tomato, but it's still early. I know you have your grievances with him, and all that and more with your -- friend over there, but I think we all might crumple under the tension between these two if they continue to sit in silence here. You can finish your haranguing this evening at dinner. I want to tell you about how these Boston physicians are holding this city hostage with their medieval fears against proven scientific facts on inoculations, and effectively dooming us all. I’ve had more laconic conversational partners than you, my dear. I’m willing to bet I can drag an argument out of you yet. Shall we?”

With another quick glance at Silver, and a longer look at Flint, Madi stands. She’s wordless as she follows Thomas out the back door in a pointed way, which Flint knows Thomas will take as the challenge that it is.

Then, he’s alone with Silver.

“How long did you remain on the plantation?” Silver asks. He’s still by the window.

Flint looks down into his teacup. Thomas had made it just how he likes it. “A week, I think. Maybe a little less.”

Silver raises his eyebrow. “What did you do for a week?”

“Slept,” Flint says with a shrug.

Silver chuckles. “Well, if anyone deserved that, it was you.” He finally makes his way over to the table. He doesn’t thud any of his steps. He doesn’t take Madi’s chair or Thomas’s, but makes a point to circle around to the other side of Flint and sit down in the remaining chair with a long sigh.

“She doesn’t understand why you did it,” Flint says. It’s not really a question, but it’s easier to talk about Madi than -- anything else.

“She understands,” Silver says. “She just doesn’t agree. And it was true, that not knowing for sure what happened to you upset her deeply. I started tracking you almost as soon as the treaty went through, but by then you’d already left the plantation.”

“Why?” Flint asks, because he genuinely doesn’t know.

Silver looks away, but he’s smiling ruefully. “I’ve seen all too well what happens to those who lose track of you, Captain. And I -- wanted to make sure you were alright. If you hadn’t left the plantation by the time I’d looked into it, I would have taken measures myself.”

“You don’t need to call me that anymore,” Flint says. “I”m not a Captain.”

“Names hold such meaning, don’t they?” Silver says. “We pick them, we build on them, we believe in them, and they become a force through which we cannot separate without killing something in the process. I don’t know your name anymore. You could tell me, and I still won’t know it. I still won’t know him.”

He meets Flint’s eyes again and says, “But you’ll always be my Captain, whatever name follows the title. So I hope you’ll allow me that small mercy.”

Flint breathes deeply, looks down at his cup, and says, “I think this requires something stronger than tea, don’t you?”

Silver watches Flint as he stands, watches him clear away the tea Thomas made, watches him grab the bottle Thomas thinks is hidden from him. It isn’t until Flint places a glass in front of him and pours him some whiskey before he finally speaks again.

“She’ll never forgive me.” He doesn’t touch his drink. He rubs at his beard in agitation. He talks to Flint like how he’d talk to himself, which it almost is. “You were right, _again_ , you predicted this outcome _again_ , that I would regret my choices, that’d she’d never forgive them. Except I _don’t_. I’m _not_ sorry. We _lived_. Goddamn it, I didn’t think there was a chance in Hell we could and we _did_ , and I’m supposed to feel guilty for that? What does she want me to do, find another war for her to die in? I think -- I think she’d made her peace with dying while Rogers had her and she just can’t reconcile the fact that she has to _keep on_ , and find a way to live in the world we’ve got. I --”

“Her reasons for fighting were drastically different from ours,” Flint interjects delicately. “It’s not as….emotional for her. Or rather, her emotions reach so beyond what we’re capable of understanding. And she fought for something that is in no way resolved.”

“ _Your_ reasons haven’t disappeared, either,” Silver says desperately. “England still rules. We--”

“I am not Madi,” Flint says. “My remedies turned out to be a little more… accessible than I’d thought. Perhaps if she’d experienced the kind of losses I have, her mind would coincide stronger with my own, not that I’d wish such a thing upon her. But she isn’t unreasonable. She’s surprisingly idealistic, but she isn’t ignorant of the world. You say she understands your reasons. She just needs time.”

“She also doesn’t like that I kept my plan from her,” Silver says in a rush. “How I kept -- all of it from her.”

“Ah.” Flint doesn’t know how his afternoon wound up about giving relationship advice to John Silver. He’s never had particularly long lasting relationships, or any that ended well. Still, it’s better than another afternoon of copying Thomas’s essay. Or at least, better for his eyes. “That may take longer to forgive.”

Silver finally has a drink. He downs it. “I just wanted her to be safe,” he rasps. “I just wanted _you_ safe, all of us safe. You see that, right? Do you see me as a villain here?”

 _It must be awful being you_ , Flint thinks, but he doesn’t connect it right away to the memory. He just thinks it, looking at the anguish in Silver’s eyes, the slump of his shoulders, his white grip on the empty glass. Flint knows how awful it is, so he knows how awful it must be for him.

“No,” he says easily. “I don’t.”

“Even when I dug up the cache without telling you?” Silver leans forward in his chair, flattening both hands on the table, on top of all the papers. “Even when I sent men to kill you? Even when I pulled my pistol on you? I --”

“No,” Flint says, and means it. He thinks Silver might wants Flint to hate him, or at least confirm his suspicions, but he’s also picked up this bad habit of being honest at the dinner table, since it’s one of the few places in his life where such a thing is afforded. “Not once. It wasn’t fair, what Billy placed on your shoulders, what I encouraged from you. I said you are the best of us and I meant it. Everyone involved, myself included, was motivated by rage, or greed, or pride. In this whole line of events, everyone toppled beneath their ideologies, their unwillingness to compromise, their stubbornness and hubris. In the end, you just wanted peace. Your methods might have been… faulty at times. Mistakes were made. But I cannot sit here and call you a monster for wanting peace for yourself and your -- friends.”

Silver’s eyes are shining. He swallows several times before responding, “You used to be able to convince me of anything. How I resented you for that.”

“Are you saying it’s working now, or it isn’t?”

Silver shrugs and looks away. “I don’t know.”

They don’t say anything for a little while. Flint refills Silver’s drink, but Silver doesn’t touch it.

“What exactly is it the two of you do, anyway?” Silver asks eventually, taking in the papers. Flint realizes he’s been reading one of them.

“Thomas runs the books for a local grocer,” Flint says. “I work for a carpenter.”

“‘A Narrative of the Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox in New England,’” Silver reads, holding up one of the papers. “This is your handwriting.”

Now Flint is the one looking away. “Thomas’s words. Apparently disease was quite the problem on the plantation. He -- can’t write well anymore. The fingers in his hand were broken and never healed properly. So he dictates to me and I write it for him.”

“Are you serious?” Silver gestures wildly with one of the essays. “He’s just earned his freedom, and he’s _rabblerousing_ again?”

“He’s not wrong,” Flint says defensively. “The methodology has been proven in Europe. And people here are dying. And I’ve insisted we write it anonymously.”

Silver stares at him incredulously for a moment, before laughing slightly, setting it down. Flint finds he’s smiling too. He complains about the labor of the writing, the repetition, and the hopes that they might achieve any change. He can’t be faulted for being cynical at the notion that the world can be changed. But the fact that Thomas’s mind never dimmed in all this time, that his passion and his compassion have never wavered -- it gives Flint hope that he also isn’t as unrecognizable as he fears he is. Thomas saw him. Thomas recognized him.

“Do you ever miss it?” Silver asks, voice soft again.

“What?”

“The account,” Silver says. “The life.”

“Don’t.” Flint’s feels a crack under his hands and realizes he’s still holding his whiskey glass. He sets it down deliberately. “ _Don’t_. You can’t do that. You can’t -- unmake it and then try to find it again. You _can’t_.”

“I’m sorry,” Silver says. “I wasn’t -- I know you aren’t him anymore. But James McGraw sailed, too. I just wonder if you missed sailing.”

He’d wanted to escape the ocean for a long time before he finally did. But he's since learned it's as part of him as the blood in his veins. Some days, Flint will be working in his shop, sawdust lingering in the air, and he’ll breathe in deep, but they’re too far inland to get that salt smell, that brine taste on the tip of the tongue. Some nights, Flint will jerk awake at the stillness of the bed, heart pounding, thinking the winds have gone and they’re trapped in the middle of a dead ocean, waiting for the moment they get desperate enough to eat each other. Sometimes, he’ll go out to the harbor and watch the ships, watch the water, watch the ropes, and he won’t remember what he’s thinking about, but suddenly it’ll be dark and there’s a coat falling on his shoulders, and Thomas won’t ever say anything about where he finds him.

“It’s not as simple as waking up from a dream,” Flint says. “Or taking off a mask. There is only one person here. There’s only just me. I don’t miss the life.”

Silver nods, like that might satisfy him as an answer. He still looks to Flint like a beam of sunlight is shining down on him, like on those bright afternoons they sparred on the hill. Except he’d never been this clean. Flint had never been able to notice the smooth complexion on the bridge of his nose or the slope of his neck, the hint of gold hidden in the jut of his cheekbones. His eyes shine with a light that isn’t coming from the sun. It’s coming only from Flint.

“I _do_ miss the sea,” Flint says suddenly, because Silver is here and he _aches_ for it. “I miss looking at it. The way that particular shade of blue might change in an instant, whether it be angry or calm. I miss all the curls of the waves, how it always made me feel like I knew where I stand. _How_ to stand. I miss its voice.”

“Voice?” says Silver, hushed. He’s unblinking as he stares at Flint, his eyes wide and deep.

“Yes,” says Flint quietly, edging forward. He rests both hands on the table, too, the essays crumpling beneath his palm. “That voice. It can be soft or thunderous or beguiling or playful, depending only on the strength of the wind. I miss those sounds, that voice, especially at night.”

Slowly, so slowly, Silver reaches out. He places his hand on one of Flint’s, just resting there, and it’d be so easy for him to just twist his wrist and move away, or twist his wrist and entwine their fingers. It’d be _so_ easy but Flint can’t do anything. He just lets the warmth of Silver’s hand seep into his skin.

“I was thinking about you, the other day,” Flint admits, and then laughs a little. “Seeing you on my doorstep was like you walking out of my dreams.”

Silver doesn’t say anything but his hand twitches slightly.

“You see,” Flint says, trying to keep his voice low, but he can’t help it, he laughs again, “I haven’t been able to tell Thomas _anything_. He knows about Miranda, but only the barest details I can stand to share, because I had no other choice. But he knows nothing of the circumstance. I couldn’t tell him about Peter, or his father, or the countless other atrocities I’ve committed in his absence. He deserves to know, and he’s shared with me all that he has endured, but the story just _won’t come_. It can’t. It scatters on my tongue like ash the moment I think to try, and there’s just nothing there when I open my mouth. It’s agonizing, to want to share yourself and being utterly unable. And I’d been hoping, just recently, that one day I might see you again. If only to tell you that I understand what you said, that day on the hill. I understand it.”

“Thomas seemed to recognize me, before,” Silver says after a moment. “Outside, it looked like he might know who I was.”

“Of course, I told him about _you_.” He places his free hand on top of Silver’s. “And Madi. I can’t share with him my multitude of sins, but I could tell him about my friends. And they actually knew of Long John Silver, all the way in Savannah. He uttered the name with _such_ \-- I couldn’t _stand_ it. Even if only one person could learn the truth of who you really are, I’d sleep better at night.”

Flint has ink on his fingers, and papercuts. He all has a couple blisters, because wielding a hammer and wielding a sword are two entirely different instruments. There’s a dull ache there, in his bones and tendons, so unused to honest work. The back of Silver’s hand is soft and still, and easy to hold on to.

“There’s never been any part of my past I wished people to speak of,” says Silver. He’s looking at where they’re touching. “But now you’re a part of my past, and when I walk by, I hear people whisper your name as well, and it doesn’t bother me. They talk about all we achieved together, what we were capable of, what we survived. You’re a story now I can share. For awhile I thought I couldn’t, not knowing what finally became of you. Not knowing what you thought of me. It doesn’t surprise me that Madi might not forgive me. It might be what I deserve, and I’ll try every day for the rest of my life to make it up to her. I think I could live like that, working forever for her forgiveness. But I _needed_ you to forgive me. I want to tell that story.”

“It’s possible,” says Flint, squeezing Silver’s hand, “that we should have had this conversation ages ago.”

Silver snorts, smiling with his eyes. They don’t say anything. In the quiet, they could now hear Thomas and Madi speaking outside. Flint can’t make out what they’re saying, but from the tone of Thomas’s voice, he knows they’re arguing, and that Madi is making her point well.

“It’s so hard loving them, isn’t it?” Silver asks, looking in the direction of the garden. “They’re so good, and you have to try so _hard_ to be worthy of them. And sometimes that’s everything. That’s inspiring. That makes you _want_ to be the person that deserves them. But then, the rest of the time it’s so exhausting, and dispiriting, because you never feel you’ll be enough.”

Flint is at his kitchen table. This is a place where he lets himself speak the truth, and there isn't a war to take precedent over how he feels. He nods. He says, “But it’s so easy loving you. Because you have seen everything there is to see of me, all the parts of me, and you’re still here. Even when we’ve been apart, the part of me that loves you has been unwavering and unchanging. It’s the part of me that keeps me calm.”

Silver doesn’t look stunned by what Flint said. He looks a little sad, and a little happy, and a little puzzled, altogether. He pulls Flint forward by the back of the head and rests their foreheads together.  

Flint means it. He loves Thomas so much, but Silver isn’t wrong about how hard that is. He’s terrified by how much he needs Thomas, how he’s afraid every time Thomas steps outside the house, that he might never come back. That somehow on his walk from the grocer to home, he’ll stumble on the truth of Captain Flint and never want to see him again. His love for Thomas has always made him want to do wild and insane things, like pardon pirates, or start a war, or battle smallpox. He’s anxious with the desire to keep Thomas’s love, not because he believes in any way that Thomas is fickle with it, or disingenuous, but because he doesn’t want Thomas to be wrong about him.

But Silver has seen him at his very worst, and they’d been at odds before, but in the end, there Silver was, making sure they both survived this war. In the end, his love for Silver is a simple thing, not something he has to work for, not something he has to worry about. It’s just _there_. Flint can’t tell if it had always been there, like a simple green hill cresting over a sea; or if he had just built it without thinking, like a campfire in the dark to tell secrets over; or if he had actively pursued it, like chasing a thief through the wrecks, through the night. But there it is, all the same.

“That’s the thing about the sea, you know,” Silver says, the words touching Flint’s lips with a gust of air. “Even when you miss it, it’ll be there. It’ll always be there, ready for you, if you wanted it.”

They stay like that, at his table, foreheads touching, hands clasped, and that is how Thomas and Madi finds them.

* * *

Dinner is an awkward affair, but not because they had found Flint and Silver holding each other.

It's because Madi and Thomas are still debating smallpox.

“Clearly, these inoculations were discovered by _my_ people,” Madi is saying. Flint has never seen her drunk before, but she's drinking now. They all are; it's been that sort of day. The only indication that she's drunk is by the volume of her voice, though that might be Thomas’s doing. “And yet we will receive no credit for our discovery. We will be nameless footnotes of a white physician’s acclaimed work, listed beside the nameless other slaves he experimented on.”

Thomas sighs. “Dr. Boylston also tried it on his own son,” he says with the air of someone making the same point for the hundredth time, seeing it gets him nowhere, but trying it again anyway. “And he _saved_ them all from smallpox! Look, I’m not disagreeing with you. You're absolutely right that the slaves in this situation, like all situations, were treated abhorrently. But you cannot argue that the method at which information is gathered outweighs the enormous benefit of utilizing said information to save _hundreds_ of lives. Through the simple application of infected pus on an open wound, Dr. Boyl--”

“ _Thomas._ ” Flint sets his fork down on his plate a little harder than he’d meant, and it's only slightly because the whiskey has slowed his movements. “How many _times_ \--”

“Yes, sorry.” Thomas pats his arm without looking away from Madi. “I shan't mention pus at the table again. I promise this time.”

Flint is done with his dinner anyway, but makes a show of shoving his plates away. Thomas notices, Flint knows, because he has to hide his smile as he continues his conversation with Madi. “You cannot measure the lives of hundreds --  women, children -- who will benefit against the few it _might_ harm in doing so.”

“I think anytime someone does something awful for the sake of the _greater good_ ,” Madi says coolly, “they have already lost, where it counts.”

“So you _wouldn't_ save hundreds of innocent lives,” Thomas persists, “just to protect the one?”

Madi stiffens, her mouth snapping shut with an audible click. It's not Thomas’s fault. He doesn't know what he's stumbled into. If anything, it's Flint’s fault for not telling him everything. Thomas just smiles, unrealizing, like he's won something.

Silver has been silent throughout their meal, watching everything. He's sitting across from Thomas, and Flint has seen them exchange eye contact a few times over dinner, and it never looked like a friendly glance. Flint suspects _some_ kind of pissing match is going on, because Silver pointedly rests his crutch against the table, moving it around needlessly to reach for something, while Thomas is using his injured hand more often than usual. He lets it rest on the table when he isn't trying to grip a utensil, the scars and gnarled bone vivid in the candlelight. Flint thinks Silver might have thrown his left leg upon the table, too, if he could find reason.

Flint thinks Silver is going to let Thomas drive his point home, and incidentally make Silver’s own case for him, but instead he finally interrupts just as Thomas opens his mouth to continue.

“For Christ’s sake,” he says, also putting down his fork. “Can we please stop talking about this _fucking_ disease? Give her one of your essays, then, if you wish so much to educate her to your point. You’ve plenty of them lying around.”

Everyone at the table goes deathly quiet. Flint quickly exchanges a _look_ with Madi. Silver and Thomas don’t notice. They’re glaring at each other.

“Perhaps you should take the time to educate yourself first,” Thomas says stiffly, “before adding input into a conversation to which you know nothing about.”

“I’m sorry,” says Silver, not sounding sorry at all. He runs hot when he drinks, Flint knows, and his neck is red and shining. He grips the top of his crutch hard. “Have I done something to offend you personally?”

“I just find it difficult,” Thomas says, like he’d been waiting for Silver to ask, “to be polite to a man who willfully imprisons the people he calls _friends_.”

“Imprison?” Silver chuckles in disbelief. “Who --”

“He arrived in chains!” Thomas gestures wildly to Flint with his bad hand.

Thomas had heard stories of Long John Silver before Flint had turned up. Flint had tried to dispel fact from fiction. It hadn’t occurred to him Thomas might have other issues than the legends.

“Now,” says Flint. “Hang on--”

“ _Him_?” Silver laughs again. “There isn’t a prison out there that can hold Captain Flint. I knew that.”

“That isn’t his name!”

Silver’s jaw ticks beneath his cheek. “Well, _someone_ got you out of there,” he sneers, “and I can’t imagine _you_ did it _yourself_.”

“ _Enough_ ,” Flint says, and it sounds strange to his ears, louder and deeper, but then he realizes Madi had spoken at the same time.

Silver and Thomas both pointedly close their mouths, but they don’t stop glaring at each other. Even when Thomas takes a long drink of his whiskey, or when Silver takes another hard bite of his roast.

“Madi,” Flint says, teeth clenched. “What have you been up to these days?”

She’s the only one who doesn’t look outwardly angry, but that might be because she’s avoiding staring at Silver. “I’m continuing my father’s work,” she says. “Many of my people have chosen to stay on our island. Some are older, some with young children who fear for their safety. Many of whom are just tired of the world around them. Even if there is no fight to lead, I am still responsible for the safekeeping of that place. So I am able to gather supplies for us in Nassau.”

“You’ve been going to Nassau?” Flink asks Silver, surprised.

“I think if I were to set foot in Nassau again,” Silver says, still glaring at Thomas, “I’d likely burn it to the ground.”

“I’m sure if you were to set your _foot_ there,” Thomas adds, “you’d likely be executed on sight.”

“It’s good that you’re continuing your father’s work,” Flint says quickly. “He’d be proud of you, I’m sure.”

“And what about you, Mr. Silver?” Thomas asks innocently. “How do you keep yourself busy, if you don’t accompany Madi on her excursions?”

Silver’s hand falls on the table. It lands softly, directly on the handle of his dinner knife. Flint has never known Silver to fly into a rage. He’s always been sharper lying in wait, letting himself plan it all out so the violence he’d incur would be the most effective. But then he remembers standing beside Madi on the deck of the long-gone Walrus, watching the long-gone Dooley swing at the air and stomp his foot three times on the wood. The glance Madi throws him indicates she also remembers.

“Madi,” Flint says again, forcefully, “did you know Silver plays the piano?”

“What?” says Thomas.

“ _What?_ ” says Silver.

“Really?” says Madi. “I don’t think I knew that.”

“We have a study upstairs,” Flint says, rising from the table. The room spins a fraction before righting itself, and he decides he’s drunk enough to continue with this desperate plan. “The home came with a piano, though neither Thomas or I play. Perhaps Mr. Silver can regale us with a song.”

When he stands, they all stand. Thomas normally doesn’t like to keep waste on the table, in part due to ten years living in filth after a lifetime of splendor, in part because he’s afraid it might ruin his pamphlets. But they all leave the table, and everyone follows Flint up the staircase.

“I don’t --” says Silver, at the very end of the line. “When did I tell you about that?”

“It was after we sparred one day,” says Flint helpfully. “You were drunk.”

“I --” He stops again. “I was drunk.”

“You used to travel around, playing shanties, you said,” Flint says, leading them into the parlor. “And your associates would pickpocket your audience.”

“And I… told you about that part as well,” Silver sighs. “This is what I get, for being so sure I’d never be in the same room with you and a piano.”

The home has two bedrooms, with the obvious assumption that a room would be for Flint and the other for Thomas. They had intended the second room to be a sort of work room, which they would reserve for their writing only. But that had kind of bled into the rest of the house, and now this room simply exists to escape from all that. There’s one good chair, which they both insist is _their_ chair, and one alright chair, a worn sofa, and a piano near the only window, the wooden frame faded by the sun’s exposure.

“I don’t think it’s in tune,” Thomas says. He moves a pile of books from the piano bench without looking at Silver.

“That’s fine,” says Silver, sitting down. He lifts the cover, and it rises under his hands in a cloud of dust. “I’ve never played on a tuned piano in my life.”

He pokes a couple of the keys, head bent a little to hear better. Flint sits down in the alright chair, because it provides a better angle to Silver’s face. Madi is about to sit down, too, but then Thomas stops her.

“My dear,” he says, holding out his good hand. “Have you ever danced with an English gentleman before?”

Silver’s finger lands hard on one of the keys, the tone ringing dully in the air. He doesn’t move or say anything.

“I have yet to meet an English gentleman,” Madi says. But then she takes his hand anyway.

Flint sees Silver straighten at the bench, glancing at them over his shoulder with one eye. “Mayb--” Flint starts, sitting up.

But then Silver begins to play. It’s not the lilting pieces that used to fill the Hamilton parlor, or the hymnals that Miranda used to teach the local children. It’s a quick, jaunty tune, the kind Flint has heard played in the background of saloons and bars as he made shady deals with shady men. It doesn’t sound that great, but Flint, who knows nothing about music, knows that has everything to with the piano and nothing to do with Silver’s skill. Flint is mesmerized, watching his hands fly naturally over the keys. They’re the only part of him that doesn’t look rigid and uncomfortable. His long fingers stretch out over the ivory, and though the song sounds repetitive, hitting the same sharp notes over and over, by no means does it seem an easy song to play.

Thomas, as far as Flint knows, has never danced to music like this before, but he doesn’t seem to care. He swings Madi around the tiny room, slow and measured, then suddenly too hard, startling a laugh from her every time she’s pulled in his direction. Flint has never heard her laugh before, and suddenly, he gets it. He gets Silver. He knows what the fight meant for Madi, what it still does, and what it means to have it taken from her. It’s so unbelievably selfish to think so, but it seems to Flint, in this moment, much more important that she still gets to laugh like this, now.

But every time she laughs, Silver’s face gets whiter, more pinched, and his back straightens, but his _hands_. God, his hands. They speed up over the keys, flying from one end to another rapidly, moving faster and faster than Flint has ever seen someone play before. Thomas and Madi can’t keep up, though they try, and eventually they stop breathlessly, holding each other and laughing, and Silver slams both hands on the keys and rises.

Thomas and Madi don’t move from each other, but they stop laughing. Flint stands, and they all watch silently as Silver awkwardly moves around the bench on his crutch.

“I only know one song,” he mutters as he leaves the room.

Madi steps forward to go after him, and Flint’s about to follow, but Thomas holds her back.

“You go,” Thomas says to Flint. “I wish to speak frankly to the lady in private, if you don’t mind.”

Flint does, in fact, mind, because that’s one of the most frightening things Thomas has ever said. But Silver is moving so loudly on his crutch Flint can hear it from upstairs, so he makes his way to him without another word.

Silver is staring out the window again. Flint joins him. The streetlights have been lit already. No one moves much at this hour, only the occasional carriage passing by. Flint feels dizzy by how still it looks out there.

“When did you stop,” Silver asks quietly, “feeling terrified every time Thomas left your sight?”

If one counted the number of days, the time Silver and Madi had spent together was longer than what Flint had with Thomas, the first time around. But the amount of time lost for Flint was infinitely longer. He doesn’t wish her any harm, _God,_ he _doesn’t_ , but deep in the night, when he’s at his darkest, he wonders what he and Silver might have become, what they might have done together, if she’d been lost to them a little while longer.

“I don’t know that it ever does,” Flint says honestly. “But the fear goes away faster, with each day. I’m sorry that he’s being -- protective…”

Silver laughs slightly. “It’s fine,” he says. “Trust me when I say, I’ve endured harsher treatments.”

“But you shouldn’t have to.” Flint puts a hand on his shoulder. “You did all this for our peace, why should you have to sacrifice your own?”

“But I did,” Silver says. “Her, you, my men, my purpose, the money -- I gave it all up so that we might live. All I have are more memories I’m not sure I want to define me anymore than the rest, because I still don’t know if the summation is worth _anything_.”

Silver sounds like he might be close to crying, and Flint grips his shoulder tighter. He wants to reach up and stroke his neck, and he wants to reach down and clasp his hand. He wants the candles on the street to be taller, so that this night might go on forever.

“Before you, Miranda was the closest to ever convince me to leave the account, and find my own brand of peace,” Flint says. “I listened then, because at the time she was the only one who knew all of me, and still recognized me through all bloodstains and scorch marks, through all the regret. She saw the worth buried there, among everything.”

“She knew all of you, though,” Silver says, as a single tear escapes the corner of his eye. “You don’t--”

“I know all of you.” Now Flint does take his hand. “I recognize you.”

A carriage strolls down the street, the windows dark, the rider slumped slightly like he's dozing. They back away from the window anyway. Silver grips his hand tighter in case Flint had tried to pull away. They keep looking outside though, even though all he wants is to gaze at Silver. He’s learned too often, one never knew when it might be the last time one saw someone. Of course, he could remember vividly the last time he’d seen Miranda, or Gates, or Eleanor. But Thomas -- from before -- was had been lost over the years and it had been like a constant knife in his stomach until Thomas himself showed up to pull it out and quell the bleeding. Madi, he hadn’t remembered either, not knowing at the time he wouldn’t see her again, so all he’d remembered was the feel of her hand on his elbow, how surprising that had been. 

“You had forgiven me by now,” Silver says, “when I betrayed you.” Then, he grimaces. “The first time.”

But Silver. Every moment with Silver is stacked upon each other. Every memory feels like the first one, and the last. They flip through his mind like the pages of a book. He could stop on any one of them and find something he remembers.

“I am not Madi,” he says again. “I think your life will be much easier once you realize that fact.”

Despite everything, Silver snorts. “Not hardly,” he says. “Do you know how much simpler my life would have been if I only had to worry about the one of you?”

Flint’s about to answer, with what he doesn’t know, but a voice from behind interrupts.

“I’ve come to apologize,” Thomas announces. Flint steps away from Silver at the same time Silver steps away from him. “You must forgive me. I’ve forgotten all notions of courtesy in the last decade or so, not having much use for it.”

He stands in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back. Madi is beside him, looking serene.

“Uh.” Silver glances at Flint out the corner of his eye. “It’s fine.”

“It isn’t,” Thomas insists, coming forward. “I enjoyed a lovely dance with your wife. It’s only fair for me to extend the same offer for you and my husband.”

The look on Silver’s face has made whole crowds of vicious, bloodthirsty men tremble before it. He says, teeth clenched, eyes dark, “I. Can’t. Dance.”

“No, of course you can’t,” Thomas says, considering, mindless of Silver’s look and tone. “You’re the only one here who can play the music.”

The expression on Silver’s face clears with a confused blink. Thomas used to do that all the time, quell the angriest men in his parlors with a simple, honest change in perspective.

Thomas is frowning, thinking, while Madi stands patiently beside him. For a moment, Flint has double vision, and he sees them but he also sees someone else in Madi’s place, another woman, the two of them in finer clothes and in a more lavish room. Their ease characteristic of two people who are aware they are in total control of everyone in the room. Flint feels uneasy, but a _good_ kind of uneasy. The anticipation of someone else taking control for his own well-being. He hadn’t felt that in a long time.

The tips of Thomas’s ears are slightly flushed, but it’s the only sign of drunkenness leftover from dinner. Instead, he looks deadly serious, which makes the hair on the back of Flint’s neck stand up. Flint, for his part, feels dizzyingly sober.

“I suppose the best substitute for a dance,” Thomas says, cocking his head, “would have to be a kiss. I believe that's what the poets would suggest.” 

Flint huffs. He _is_  shocked by Thomas’s proposal but instead he finds himself marveling at the complete lack of subtlety. “Have you been planning this since you decided to be difficult at dinner,” he asks, “or did this plot occur to you earlier?”

“Darling, you should know by now that I never _decide_ to be difficult,” says Thomas. “It comes to me naturally. I’ve learned to just go along with it.”

Silver no longer even slightly resembles that fearsome pirate from a moment ago. He swallows heavily, the whites of his eyes shining brightly as he stares at Madi. “Is this a test?” he asks her, voice small.

“Mm-hmm.” But then the corner of Madi's mouth ticks up just a little bit, the only hint of encouragement.

Flint doesn’t know what this _is_ , but he feels like he’s been waiting for someone, _anyone_ , to suggest this out loud for it to take root in his mind. Before that, it had been waiting in the periphery, an impossibility not to be acknowledge. But those impossibilities are where Thomas has always lived and thrived. He makes the impossible things seem obvious and true.

So he turns to Silver, and finds he’s already facing Flint. He puts his hand on Silver’s shoulder, fingers brushing the nape of his neck, and leans in. Silver shifts back a little, searching Flint’s eyes. He stills looks confused, still looks lost, but then he’s moving forward and he’s meeting Flint in the middle.

Flint holds Silver’s face, lest he think of cutting this short, but then Silver’s hand clutches at his back, pulling him in. He can feel Silver’s lips shake against his own, even as he opens his mouth slightly, just enough for Flint to taste. The kiss is bright the way a night sky in the middle of an empty ocean is bright. It’s dark, the way Flint has always known darkness to be. It’s the way Flint told Silver it could be. When Silver moans lowly into him, Flint feels discovered. When Silver presses himself flush against him, Flint feels the possibilities. When Silver draws back just to rub their cheeks together and breathe, staying close, Flint feels free.

He thinks they might be holding onto each other for a long time after they stop kissing, unable to pull apart, but when they do finally, Thomas and Madi are a lot closer than they were before.

“When I return home,” Madi says softly, “I will be returning home alone. You will stay here.”

Silver makes an anguished noise in the back of his throat, ripping himself from Flint completely and reaching for her. “No,” he says. “Please --”

“Listen to me, John Silver,” she says, and he stops just short of her. “This is not a punishment. This is where you will learn how to share someone you love, whether it’s with their ideals, or another person. You cannot sit on that hill forever, waiting for me to forgive you, when all that will happen is you will grow to resent me for taking my time with it. Shush, let me speak.” She takes his wrist in her hand, grips it tight. Her voice is calm, but her eyes aren’t. “I am learning how to find a purpose in this world _you_ chose for me. I am learning how I might change it, in smaller ways than what I had intended. I cannot do that, knowing you are still stuck in a past, waiting for me to join you there again. So you will remain here. It won’t be forever.” She brings his hand to her mouth and lets it rest there, not quite kissing it. “You need this, and I need this. I cannot forgive you, if I don’t miss you first. I have work to do, and you need to figure out what that means for you now, too.”

“And, of course, she’ll visit often,” Thomas chimes in, “now that she knows her closest friends reside in Boston.”

“Yes,” Madi says, looking at Flint. “This is far from goodbye.”

Silver stills looks torn. “Can I write to you?”

She considers this. “You’ll have to address them to Nassau,” she says finally. “I’ll have Max make sure to look out for them.”

“She’ll throw them away,” Silver says, frowning. “She hates me.”

“But she likes me,” Madi says, letting go of his hand. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

“I hate everything about this,” Silver says.

“Liar,” she says, and she’s looking over his shoulder at Flint again as she says this.

“Besides, she isn’t leaving tonight,” Thomas says, approaching them both. “You must stay a few days, at least. I have plans tomorrow night with a couple people in town. We’re planning a series of essays dictating the inevitability and benefits of abolition, and I know they’d be eager to speak with you and learn more about your upbringing. Not to mention, we will likely need your assistance in acquiring Mr. Silver a job he can actually find success in.”

“I’m sorry,” says Silver, color draining from his face. “A what?”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” says Thomas. He strolls back to the kitchen, and begins to clean up the table. “I hadn’t meant to imply you’d be staying here out of the kindness of my heart. That well has run quite dry in the last few years, and though it has been steadily refilling itself as of late, I’m afraid we will still need you to pay rent.”

“What?” Silver says again.

“It had been suggested to me recently that we might take on a lodger to make up for printing expenses, but obviously that hasn’t been a possibility before, what with all the sin in this house.” Thomas returns to them, hands Silver a glass of whiskey, and one of his essays. “This works out perfectly. How’s your penmanship? James tends to get a might sloppy around the tenth or so pamphlet, worse than mine even, so your help in this regard will be extremely appreciated.”

“Please,” Silver says to Madi, “take me with you. I’ll do anything.”

Madi just smiles. “Perhaps this _is_ also a punishment.”

Flint takes Thomas aside while Silver continues to beg. “Are you sure about this?” he asks quietly.

Thomas kisses him sweetly, with just enough pressure to make Flint almost forget his question. When he pulls back, he presses his lips together, as though trying to capture a lingering taste.

“There are too many things working against us, aiming to keep us apart from those we love,” Thomas says. “We should never be one of those things ourselves.”

“But --”

“I know things will never be how they were,” Thomas murmurs. “But they might again be passing for normal, for us. I think him being here might help you reconcile all the parts of yourself you keep from me, because I do know you don’t completely hate who you were when you were with him. And you know I’ve always been happy to share you, as long as you are happy too.” He presses his lips against Flint’s ear. “Plus, I remember several evenings where Miranda and I shared you _together_.”

Flint feels his heartbeat everywhere, in his ears, in his fingertips, pulsing through his arms, pounding in his stomach. “You’d -- you’d want that?” he asks hoarsely. “But I thought you didn’t like him.”

“I absolutely do not,” Thomas agrees, looking over at Silver. “But the years have been long, James, my love, and God made that man too pretty to live.”

“What did you say to make him look like that?” Silver asks Thomas, looking over at Flint curiously. Madi is smiling at Flint in a knowing way, like she knows exactly what in store for him.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough, Mr. Silver,” Thomas says magnanimously. He pulls Flint by the hand until they’re all standing together. No more carriages pass by outside. It feels like it used to, when he’d been sailing and they hadn’t seen another soul in days. Like they existed in their own space, like they existed only in a dream, untouched by the harsh realities of other people. He wonders where they’re all going to sleep tonight. Then he notices how Thomas and Silver are only inches apart as they speak, and whatever look Silver saw on Flint’s face probably increased tenfold.

“Are you sure you’re fine with this, Captain?” Silver asks, eyes as wide and sincere as the sea.

“Goodness,” says Thomas. “Suddenly, things are much clearer.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nevermind,” says Thomas. He places a hand on Silver’s elbow. Flint forgets how to breathe for a moment. “Tell me, do you have any kind of marketable skills whatsoever? A friend of mine runs the inn a few blocks away and he’s looking for a new man to work the kitchens. Do you know how to cook at all?”

Madi takes Flint’s hand and leads him away from them with a roll of her eyes. She pulls him in the direction of his bookcase. Flint is suddenly struck with the realization that everything is changing for him once again, but that this paradigm shift isn’t about making sacrifices, making compromises. For once, Flint is just receiving without having to give up anything he holds dear. He doesn’t know how ever thought the world was too still on dry land. Everything on this Earth is always moving, and he sees now he’s moving forward.

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> leans forward, lips pressed against the mic: _fuck treasure island thank you goodnight_


End file.
